...the endless repetition of an ordinary miracle.

I very much enjoy reading other writers' diaries, mainly because it makes me ask myself: Are they like you? How do they think?

Snow reminds Ka of God! But I’m not sure it would be accurate. What brings me close to God is the silence of snow.

To read a novel is to wonder constantly, even at moments when we lose ourselves most deeply in the book: How much of this is fantasy, and how much is real?

The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.

How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?

I am proud to be a Turk, and to write in Turkish about Turkey - and to have been translated into about 40 languages. But I don't want to politicize things by dramatizing them.